Category Archives: Weeks 11 & 12: Girl’s Closet

Spring has sprung, along with spring sports, spring vacation, spring visitors . . . to get to the point, I’ve neglected my blog and my current project for far too long. I finally finished organizing my daughter’s closet. Part of the project entailed moving her into her own room, which had been used for the play room. This was her portion of her closet she shared with her brother . . .

. . .and this was the toy closet before we moved her in.

As I stated in another entry, my girl is a girly-girl. She loves dresses and babies and anything pink. So before we moved her in, we painted it pink. . .

I paired it with a pink tackle box her Grandma gave her for holding her treasures. The other storage bin I placed inside the shelves of her dresser to hold her night-time pull-ups.

This is also her new shoe-shelf. It is right at her level, and we can close the door so they are out of sight. I tried to keep her dresser mostly cleared, but placed two items: a small wooden box in which we store her barrettes and hair rubber-bands, and a headband/hat holder.

The headband holder was an idea I found on ipinterest’s blog. Check out her use of a vase here. I used my left-over fabric from my storage bin project and covered a plastic wipe container I ran through the dishwasher. The lid is remove-able so I placed some of her jewelry items inside, and it worked perfect for placing her little hats on top.

As I’ve discovered over and over in this organization process, the best organizing strategy is to get rid of what you don’t need. You simply can’t organize when you have too much stuff. Here is the bag of donation items I pulled out of her drawers and closet.

YIKES! How does one so little already have so much?! It probably doesn’t help that I never say no to hand-me-downs. 🙂

My project took me two weeks instead of one, but that’s life . . . and it is Easy-Going Organizer, after-all. This week, while we enjoy our spring vacation I am taking a break from the heavy lifting and will be working on organizing my mass of recipes into a recipe binder. Happy spring!

I’m having organizer’s block on my little girl’s closet project. So, as my goal is to finish one project a week, and now it is Tuesday (2 days past my deadline), I decided to take a little break from thinking about the closet today and hit something small and attainable — my junk drawer.

I don’t have a before picture, but it was bad. A box broke spilling pencils and pens everywhere so I could hardly open the drawer — a sign it needs to be organized. This was a spontaneous act so I used what I could find on hand to replace my broken box. This is what I came up with.

I cut off the bottom of a couple Cheerio boxes, covered them in contact paper and I had two new boxes for my pens and pencils. I also got rid of stuff. This is the key component to being organized. You just can’t have so much. I’m not quite at the minimalist stage — I know I still have more than I need — but I am down-sizing to bring order. You would not believe the number of pencils I had “before”. Here is my “after” shot.

Sigh. . . There’s nothing like a clean drawer. Maybe now my organizer’s block will be cleared and I can finally finish that closet.

This week I’m working on organizing my 3-year-old, girly-girl’s closet. I wanted some storage bins for her closet, but it’s the end of the month and Dave Ramsey says I have to stick to my budget. 🙂 Then I saw these on iheartorganizing made from cardboard boxes:

I like to save good, sturdy boxes, so I dug these out of my stash:

I purchased a yard each of fabric to match my daughter’s bedroom color scheme which came to about $7. Other supplies I needed were: strapping tape, spray adhesive, fabric glue, a fabric pencil and yard stick. I was a little concerned about the corners on these shoe boxes, so I used the strapping tape to secure them on each box.

Next I placed the box on top of my fabric and traced the bottom. I measured the sides and added that measurement to two sides of the fabric around my traced box. I used spray adhesive to attach the fabric to the bottom of the box, then lifted and folded up the pre-measured fabric for two of the sides, using spray adhesive to attach these. I found that using a squeegee (I used my Pampered Chef vegetable scoop) was helpful in smoothing the fabric onto the box. This left me with the bottom and two edges covered.

Now I needed to cover the remaining two sides. I measured the length and width, then adding about an inch to the length, measured and cut my fabric. I used fabric glue to fold under and secure the edges of the fabric, and the spray adhesive to attach it to the sides. It was helpful to roll up the fabric, then unroll and smooth it as I worked my way around these two sides. I tried to make the top edge flush and leave excess fabric at the bottom. Then I folded under the excess and secured it to the bottom with fabric glue.

Next was the inside. I measured and cut out a piece to fit the bottom first.

Then I completed the inside edges as I did the outside — two long strips at a time. I used spray adhesive, then folded under the ends and secured with fabric glue.

I wasn’t completely happy with the outside corners on this box, so I secured black bias tape I had on hand to the corners with fabric glue. It gave my imperfect corners a much more finished looked.

I still had unfinished edges at the top, so using a trick my sewing-expert mother taught me, I created my own bias tape to finish the top.

Cut fabric the length and width desired, adding an inch or so to the length to allow for folding under to hide rough edges. The finished width of the bias tape will be 1/4 the beginning width. I cut mine into two 3-inch by 13-inch strips because I had a box 24-inches around the perimeter and I wanted about 3/4 inch wide tape.

Using an iron, press in half length-wise, wrong sides together.

Open this piece, then press 1/4 the fabric into the center on each side.

Fold in half again and press once more.

I secured this around the edges of my box with fabric glue, and repeated with box number two. Here is my final result – two cute and very inexpensive storage bins for my daughter’s closet.

I’m very happy with how they turned out. A word of warning about spray adhesive though — it is very sticky stuff and gets all over. Cover your area well! I missed covering a spot on my dining room table and now have a very sticky film that I’m having trouble removing (have any ideas for that?) Happy weekend!

This week I’m working on my daughter’s closet. As I work out the details, I’ll share with you some that I’m using for inspiration.

This is obviously a boy’s closet from Better Homes and Gardens, but I love this clever idea using hooks for each day of the week! That would certainly make things easy for a child dressing him/herself.

The use of bins in this closet from Parents magazine on the top shelf is an idea I plan to use in my own organization. I love bins!

This closet from Young House Love is so much fun with a cozy little hide-away space.

From House of Turquoise, I love the incorporation of books, toys and clothing in one closet. I actually have one of these banners and hadn’t decided what to do with it. . . I may have to pin it over the closet.

Here is one from HGTV that is absolutely unreal! Have you ever seen a kid’s closet this perfect? Not in my house. 🙂 The colors and bins are just my girl’s style though. She is all about pink. These are ideas I’m using to help me put her closet together. Do you have a closet you love? I’d love to hear from you!